i recently got some stuff off of an old hard drive, which allowed me pick up where i left off on an old archival project -- assembling the mp3s that make up this wire list. i've got nearly all of it now, working off the info on these two pages:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070613182618/http://www.rtxarchive.com/archive/articles/wire175.html
http://www.fastnbulbous.com/wire100.htm
anyway, this is a thread for talking about the records on the list, and if you're interested in acquiring any of it, hit me up on slsk under the username activistjudge.
― thumbs.db (get bent), Thursday, 7 June 2012 23:48 (11 months ago) Permalink
a less-complete spotify version:
http://open.spotify.com/user/grannykart/playlist/0wbeDNzJyppfJRfaAyvjVE
― thumbs.db (get bent), Thursday, 7 June 2012 23:49 (11 months ago) Permalink
lord, the days before the internet
― thomp, Friday, 8 June 2012 02:03 (11 months ago) Permalink
Seeing that the only Beefheart on the list is the original, unreleased Bat Chain Puller makes me wonder if the Wire is trying to be hipper-than-thou by only recommending an officially unavailable release. I mean, I'm sure it's great, but (in light of the name of the list) - did this unissued album really generate a cultural conflagration greater than Trout Mask or any of the "official" Van Vlietian canon?
― Stravinsky joins the Zulu nation (zero of the signified), Friday, 8 June 2012 04:25 (11 months ago) Permalink
(It's kind of like saying that the most culturally significant Prince record was the Black Album, or something.)
― Stravinsky joins the Zulu nation (zero of the signified), Friday, 8 June 2012 04:26 (11 months ago) Permalink
a few of the "extra" albums were unreleased as well, e.g., hot gossip and derrick may...
http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/166/
― thumbs.db (get bent), Friday, 8 June 2012 04:29 (11 months ago) Permalink
keep meaning to hear that raudelunas record
― coal, Friday, 8 June 2012 04:31 (11 months ago) Permalink
I'm really not trying to argue with The Wire, but let me quote this:
"Even now, when Davis's jazz rock recordings are being reissued to great acclaim, On The Corner remains lost in time."
Really? Maybe I just keep unusually astute company, but On The Corner has always been the popular favorite/definitive statement from '70s Miles amongst the people I've known. Not saying it's the BEST, or anything, but to say it was "lost in time" doesn't really line up with the way I've seen it discussed/perceived over the last 20 years...
― Stravinsky joins the Zulu nation (zero of the signified), Friday, 8 June 2012 04:35 (11 months ago) Permalink
i agree about on the corner. maybe it's just the circles we run in, but i feel like that's the '70s miles that our cohort namechecks the most.
― thumbs.db (get bent), Friday, 8 June 2012 04:38 (11 months ago) Permalink
^^^^^^^^^^ OTM
― Stravinsky joins the Zulu nation (zero of the signified), Friday, 8 June 2012 04:38 (11 months ago) Permalink
enjoy!
http://www.sendspace.com/file/m7ijja
― thumbs.db (get bent), Friday, 8 June 2012 04:52 (11 months ago) Permalink
these albums vary quite a bit in terms of how well-known and appreciated they were in 1998. in 1994, bar-none released a hugely successful compilation of juan garcia esquivel's best material, including music from the album mentioned here. the bad brains' roir cassette and blue cheer's vincebus eruptum have always received a fair amount of acclaim. same goes for the modern lovers, last poets, dr. john's debut, pere ubu's "30 seconds over tokyo", and so one. in 1998 it would have been a stretch even to call such material "obscure".
otoh, dust sucker, tony conrad's four violins, betty davis, fushitsusha, the homosexuals and ron 'pate's debonairs were little known and very hard to hear at the time. so there's a range covered. nevertheless, it does seem a bit self-congratulatory to have described these, on the whole, as "forgotten" albums.
― spextor vs bextor (contenderizer), Friday, 8 June 2012 07:01 (11 months ago) Permalink
The On The Corner blurb was written by John F Szwed, who I don't know a lot about (other than the fact that he wrote that Sun Ra bio) but I'll tentatively guess that he's coming more from a jazz milieu rather than a skronked-out funk-rock one.
― You can do it Sun Myung Moon (NickB), Friday, 8 June 2012 08:52 (11 months ago) Permalink
There another one of these lists in the new issue btw, except it's all about bass - think it's called something like 75 low-end explosions that blew up yr granny.
― You can do it Sun Myung Moon (NickB), Friday, 8 June 2012 08:54 (11 months ago) Permalink
xpost
Szwed also wrote a p gd miles bio. he's a jazzbo, but not anti-electric miles, like martin williams or (iirc) stanley crouch
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 8 June 2012 08:59 (11 months ago) Permalink
thanks for bringing Chrome back to mind (in a grim way though)
― meisenfek, Friday, 8 June 2012 09:31 (11 months ago) Permalink
heh i wonder if this was the first issue of the wire i ever bought, i wouldve been 17? had certainly never even heard of a single one of these records anyway, and it set me off on a mostly disappointing albeit horizon-expanding hunt.
remember mark s' captivating ornette bit vividly though.
― r|t|c, Friday, 8 June 2012 09:38 (11 months ago) Permalink
actually a lot of these i've forgotten i'd ever heard of let alone own a copy of
fuck yeah this thing
― r|t|c, Friday, 8 June 2012 09:39 (11 months ago) Permalink
God, I'm glad this isn't a poll...
― emil.y, Friday, 8 June 2012 11:04 (11 months ago) Permalink
IIRC the 4 Hero, Jeff Mills, and Oval albums were treated as seminal records in their genres even back in 1998, so I'm not sure why they're on the list... Unless The Wire seriously expected "Atlantis" and "94 Diskont" to become popular outside electronic music audiences, which would be a bit silly.
― Tuomas, Friday, 8 June 2012 11:24 (11 months ago) Permalink
4Hero were pretty cross over if I seem to remember.
So, just how challenging is the Derek Bailey album? Even they way the WIRE describe it makes it sound like a pretty unpleasant listening experience.
― Ima Pay Close Attention To Your Post (Doran), Friday, 8 June 2012 11:27 (11 months ago) Permalink
If I recall correctly, even.
This was a very well-thumbed issue in my house. Right now, just about the only thing left in regular rotation would be Gris Gris.
Aida, as it goes, is a perfectly listenable Bailey record.
BTW it was fucking hard to hear Arthur Russell back then if you didn't live in some record collector hub. For years, the only thing I could get hold of was a track from 'Another Thought' on an Ocean of Sound compilation.
― Lil' Kim Philby (Call the Cops), Friday, 8 June 2012 11:37 (11 months ago) Permalink
And yeah, that quote about On The Corner is bullshit. It was sitting in just about every Virgin Megastore etc. from '94 onwards.
― Lil' Kim Philby (Call the Cops), Friday, 8 June 2012 11:38 (11 months ago) Permalink
Aida? It's one of bailey's most beautiful albs - very delicate playing in places - though it doesn't significantly depart from his usual lexicon of sounds/strategies. Depends on how 'challenging' you find free improv to be, i guess, but it's not difficult/abrasive in the same way as something like silent tongues by cecil taylor is, say
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 8 June 2012 11:39 (11 months ago) Permalink
What an obscene-looking couch.
― Lil' Kim Philby (Call the Cops), Friday, 8 June 2012 11:40 (11 months ago) Permalink
I'm genuinely curious about getting getting into Bailey. I picked up a copy of Lot '74 from a boot sale a few years ago and I found listening to it most disagreeable. To the extent where I thought that I'd found a record that had beaten me completely. I just couldn't envisage how anyone could get any pleasure out of it whatsoever. I'm sure I've gone into it arse about tit though and maybe should have just bought Standards on CD instead of waiting for vinyl to come up, which is what I prefer to do.
I'm cautiously listening to a bit of 57 - 67 free jazz which my mate has burned for me and I like watching various groups like The Thing or Aufgehoben but that's it I'm afraid. I don't really know anything about free improv, or, even if free improv and free jazz are even the same thing.
― Ima Pay Close Attention To Your Post (Doran), Friday, 8 June 2012 11:58 (11 months ago) Permalink
maybe try some of his more 'metal' albs, rather than Standards? Mirakle, on Tzadik, is a real real good'un
lots of the European free improv players had a background in, and love for, jazz, but on the whole they saw it as something different, even antagonistic towards, the American, blues-based jazz tradition. Bailey in particular was adamant he wasn't a jazz musician, partly because, Standards and one or two other examples aside,, he never worked with pre-written material.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 8 June 2012 12:06 (11 months ago) Permalink
Thanks. By metal you don't mean heavy metal do you? But I'm just on my way to a record shop now. Will try and pick up Mirakle, how exciting!
― Ima Pay Close Attention To Your Post (Doran), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:15 (11 months ago) Permalink
it's pretty weird there still hasn't been a reissue of karyobin.
― sonderangerbot, Friday, 8 June 2012 12:16 (11 months ago) Permalink
Could we poll these maybe? I know a small bunch of them but some kind of peer approved guide to which of the many others were worth buying would be quite handy. (Although a poll probably isn't the best way to rank them.)
― Ima Pay Close Attention To Your Post (Doran), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:17 (11 months ago) Permalink
I guess I do mean metal in the heavy metal sense, in that some of the electric guitar albs he made in the 90s w/ ppl like Ruins are very dense, 'heavy' albs, tho' obv you wldn't confuse em w/ a slayer rec. Mirakle pairs him w/ the rhythm section from Ornette Coleman's Prime Time band, so these guys are laying down quite a funky background over which bailey blats and skronks. round about the same time he also made a disc w/ tony williams and bill laswell (Arcana - The Last Wave) that's even more power-trio-y, but i think that's p hard to find these days.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 8 June 2012 12:21 (11 months ago) Permalink
x-post
there was a cd reissue of karyobin in the 90s
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 8 June 2012 12:22 (11 months ago) Permalink
yeah i know but that's going for £80 on ebay...
― sonderangerbot, Friday, 8 June 2012 12:24 (11 months ago) Permalink
xp - thanks, that sounds great.
― Ima Pay Close Attention To Your Post (Doran), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:25 (11 months ago) Permalink
I like watching various groups like The Thing or Aufgehoben
Might be worth giving someone like Last Exit a go, who were a pretty explosive free jazz group from the 80s with quite a driving, rock feel to them. Band was made up of Sonny Sharrock, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Bill Laswell and Peter Brotzmann, so there was a nice mix of different approaches involved.
― You can do it Sun Myung Moon (NickB), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:27 (11 months ago) Permalink
Awesome. I have an album called Killing Time by Massacre ft Laswell, Frith and Maher, but I guess that is very much metal.
― Ima Pay Close Attention To Your Post (Doran), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:31 (11 months ago) Permalink
Or try classic Brötzmann like Machine Gun or Nipples... avoids the fusion aspect altogether while hitting the mainline of juggernaut sax layers and dense, electric... Damn, I sound like David Keenan - better stop.
― Lil' Kim Philby (Call the Cops), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:36 (11 months ago) Permalink
^ Last Exit got pretty metal too sometimes
― You can do it Sun Myung Moon (NickB), Friday, 8 June 2012 12:36 (11 months ago) Permalink
Bailey's Ballads was the way in for me. Probably picked up on it from here actually. I recall Marcello being a fan. Some really beautiful, delicate playing, shards of melody or jazzy chords which are then reconfigured in all kinds of way. He "deconstructs" them, but not in some kind of juvenile noise chaos manner. Not that there's anything wrong with juvenile noise chaos. The Ruins stuff is kinda cool, but maybe their progginess reins him in a bit. Last Exit is cool, but for me the best thing Laswell did with Sharrock is Ask The Ages. Definitely a jazz album, with the interaction between Sharrock and his incredible band (featuring Elvin Jones and Pharoah Sanders) being at the heart of it. Then Laswell gets Sharrock to overdub one or two extra guitar parts, so you've got an interesting tension between live, semi-improvised playing and studio trickery. But that's by the by, the main thing is the music, which is gorgeous. Many Mansions has one of the greatest guitar riffs of all time, and Elvin Jones slays on that track.
Have you got the Jazz Satellite comps Kevin Martin put together? You should be able to dl them. Loads of electronic or studio-fucked jazz stuff on here, from classic 70s stuff to industrial skronk. It avoids fusion by and large - even the tracks by Mahavishnu et al are more abstract and electronic. I found those a great way in to a lot of kick ass high-energy jazz influenced music.
― Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. (Stew), Friday, 8 June 2012 15:37 (11 months ago) Permalink
Jazz Satellites is awesome. I didn't realize there was more than one volume though?
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Friday, 8 June 2012 15:38 (11 months ago) Permalink
Oh I see it was never released.
http://kozmigroov.blogspot.com/2008/08/jazz-satellites-ii-original-version.html
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Friday, 8 June 2012 15:44 (11 months ago) Permalink
Beat me to it!
And a good blog on the first vol:
http://surrealdocuments.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/various-artists-jazz-satellites-vol-1.html
― Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. (Stew), Friday, 8 June 2012 15:44 (11 months ago) Permalink
Larry Young's Laurence of Newark, as posted above, is indeed the bomb, but there's also the album he did with Love Cry Want which is completely, gloriously nuts. Features one Nicholas on "Prototype Guitar Synthesizer, Ring Modulator, Wind, Rain, Thunder, Lightning, Water, High-Tension Wires, and Wailing Dervish". The synth guitar sounds insane. Got a ltd reissue a year or so back. More here: http://prognotfrog.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/love-cry-want-love-cry-wantusa1972psych.html
― Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. (Stew), Friday, 8 June 2012 16:05 (11 months ago) Permalink
I'm going to have to dedicate some time to pursuing and listening to music recommendations from this thread, thanks. I've got K-Mart's Macro Dub comps but not these.
― Ima Pay Close Attention To Your Post (Doran), Friday, 8 June 2012 17:02 (11 months ago) Permalink
cosign on Lawrence of Newark, which is genuinely slept. That Monoton album is also really cool. Have never quite been able to get into World of Echo, sadly.
― rob, Friday, 8 June 2012 17:15 (11 months ago) Permalink
er, slept *on*
While listening to the Camaron/Paco record the other day I was thinking again about owning every record. This is my favourite list of records.
IIRC the 4 Hero, Jeff Mills, and Oval albums were treated as seminal records in their genres even back in 1998, so I'm not sure why they're on the list... Unless The Wire seriously expected "Atlantis" and "94 Diskont" to become popular outside electronic music audiences, which would be a bit silly.― Tuomas, Friday, 8 June 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Tuomas, Friday, 8 June 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
They should *expect* it to be come known outside their milieu. About having aspirations beyond the music being confined to a room of genre enthusiasts. This is why its such a good list, and any thread on this would bring a variety of people with different erm, core listenings.
On another note I don't think I like Bailey's Ballads that much, or that the acclaim for them was a bit weird -- almost as if what he was doing was not enough. A lot of 'hey he can play a tune', which he always could - there are little melodies on almost every record, only that they are an unstable element, like everything in most of his music.
The list needs a sequel.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 8 June 2012 19:09 (11 months ago) Permalink
I just want to say that from the records I've heard (67/100) this list is one of the best I've seen and it seriously needs a sequel.
― Moka, Friday, 8 June 2012 19:10 (11 months ago) Permalink
lol at all the "On The Corner was a number one summertime jam"-ism on this thread. "Who doesn't know 30 Seconds Over Tokyo by obscure-assed college rock band Pere Ubu, that's what I wanna know!" Lord almighty.
― how's life, Friday, 8 June 2012 19:28 (11 months ago) Permalink
that's kind of what i was meant when i said "lord, the days before the internet" . something something barriers to entry something something
― thomp, Friday, 8 June 2012 19:30 (11 months ago) Permalink
Bill Dixon's Intents and Purposes is so insanely unlike anything his contemporaries were doing. Just came out on CD for the first time last year (after being out of print for 30+ years); can't recommend it highly enough.
― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Friday, 8 June 2012 19:47 (11 months ago) Permalink
xxp: Quite. But still, don't mock the advanced listening aesthete, they just have different erm, core listenings to you.
― Ima Pay Close Attention To Your Post (Doran), Friday, 8 June 2012 19:49 (11 months ago) Permalink
Wasn't mocking. I'm basic.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 8 June 2012 20:36 (11 months ago) Permalink
to follow up on an earlier strand of thought...
i was reading a memoir this afternoon in which the author walked into a restaurant where on the corner was playing. it's not a music-related book, but the guy's a music geek and gets excited when he sees that world come into connection with his own.
― thumbs.db (get bent), Friday, 8 June 2012 21:07 (11 months ago) Permalink
xp: Fair play. I own a fair few of these records but none of the jazz/improv ones. It's a foreign country to me.
Who is the memoir of?
― Ima Pay Close Attention To Your Post (Doran), Friday, 8 June 2012 21:50 (11 months ago) Permalink
the memoir is beaten, seared, and sauced: on becoming a chef at the culinary institute of america by jonathan dixon. turns out all the chefs at the cia are into jazz, hardcore punk, and the grateful dead -- they'd dig the wire list, i think.
― thumbs.db (get bent), Friday, 8 June 2012 21:59 (11 months ago) Permalink
I think Anthony Bourdain probably likes Alice In Chains though.
― Ima Pay Close Attention To Your Post (Doran), Friday, 8 June 2012 22:52 (11 months ago) Permalink
Thought it was very badly researched that the original article came with a photo of the wrong Bad Brains since the Hudson bros one lasted so long and the Cro-mags drummer one didn't.
But I remember reading that article quite a bit. Still got it somewhere.
― Stevolende, Friday, 8 June 2012 23:33 (11 months ago) Permalink
Nice job on that Spotify playlist - they have a lot more of these than I would have expected. Remembering the days when one would be psyched to come across one of these rarities in a record store...
― o. nate, Sunday, 10 June 2012 01:43 (11 months ago) Permalink
voted for anything but Charles Ives cos i'm an idiot
― typhus in Corfu (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 10 June 2012 02:01 (11 months ago) Permalink
here's a little sampler i threw together (no sequencing, no re-tagging, just music for any order you like):
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bgizq2 (part 1)http://www.sendspace.com/file/nietlx (part 2)
ps: oh god, the last exit stuff is SO GOOD.
― thumbs.db (get bent), Wednesday, 13 June 2012 23:12 (11 months ago) Permalink
i come back to this list every now and then when i thurst for something new to listen to but don't know where to turn. one of the greatest records this list turned me onto would be the iggy pop/james williamson record. what a gem.
― borntohula, Thursday, 14 June 2012 00:44 (11 months ago) Permalink
p.s. thanks for all the samplers!
― borntohula, Thursday, 14 June 2012 00:45 (11 months ago) Permalink